Sarah Joncas, Oda & King and Alex Garant Present New Works in “Transfigure”

A new group exhibition at Last Rites Gallery in New York is looking at how 4 different artists style the human figure: Alex Garant, Sarah Joncas, and collaborative artist duo Kit King and Corey Popp (aka “Oda”) make their subjects more exciting and complex by enhancing their portraits in various ways. Whether through color, line, shape, or dramatic composition, their subjects undergo a certain transformation in their works. Their collective exhibition, “Transfigure”, currently on view through October 3rd, explores this idea.

Sarah Joncas portrays her subjects as multi-sided individuals; decorated tattooed girls and other worldly zombies with complex emotions. Her new series takes the opportunity to embellish and play with the designs that adorn them. Patterns of flowers and mushrooms overgrow from their tattoos and clothing into the third dimension of the image. Other times, they are surrounded by mysterious strings of floating protozoa.

Alex Garant

The paintings of Canadian artist Alex Garant have become instantly recognizable for the dizzying effect they create – she calls them “double eyed” portraits, referring to her overlaying of facial features like eyes and lips. Her latest subjects seem to come from another time, wearing voluminous dresses that appear to move and expand as they do. Toronto based artists Oda & King (Kit King, with her husband Oda) also portray their subjects in fragments in their hyper-realistic oil paintings. King has said that she prefers to think of their work as a transformed rendition of the world, which she and Oda render meticulously. Here, their subjects take this transformation upon themselves, applying tape, paper and other materials to their faces. Take a look at more images from “Transfigure” courtesy of Last Rites Gallery below.